National Briefing | South: North Carolina: 2 Sentenced For Harassing Family

Published: July 8, 2005

Two men convicted of trying to drive a black family out of a neighborhood in Richlands have been sentenced to nearly two years in federal prison. In March, the men, Jeremy Kratzer, 25, and Ricky Hobbs, 23, were found guilty of conspiring to violate the civil rights of Deborah Edwards and her four children in April 1999. The men were sentenced Tuesday. The prosecutor, Stephen Curran, portrayed Mr. Kratzer and Mr. Hobbs, who goes by the name Chase, as ringleaders of a group of teenage boys determined to drive Ms. Edwards and her family out of the neighborhood, called Nine Mile. The family was in the home for only a week before people in passing vehicles screamed racial epithets at Ms. Edwards. A noose was hung on the family's door, and a dead raccoon was thrown on the lawn. On Easter 1999, a cross was burned in their backyard.